Oh, Sweet Mama, Just Who Do You Think You Are?

The changes keep coming.
Music is being written,
Songs are being sung,
And I'm flying solo for the first time in my life.

A little frightened, I suppose, of what may or may not come to pass, what may or may not happen, what may work and what I may fail spectacularly at...

We'll see.

I've been contemplating the very private nature of my journal entries (writings I've kept in notebooks and scraps of paper and on margins of college notes and napkins and receipts) and I've come to realize that while most of their contents will remain private (probably until all involved are long dead and gone, should the journals still exist in the 'Fahrenheit 451' future), I find myself re-reading certain entries, thinking, "hey--maybe someone else might like to read about this...Maybe it'll help someone in a similar situation." Perhaps that's just my ego popping up to say 'look at me'...

I've new stories everyday, some that have been turned into letters, some that are created for my children, some that I only keep for very sad days and others for very sexy days. Writing that seems to pour across the surface and fill in little nooks and crannies of curiosity, clinging on, hoping to be re-read and understood by someone other than myself.  I'm well aware that this desire to reprint my heart on an electronic tableau is well and truly fed by the unbelievable amount of change that fills my life. A sort of new life, I suppose, or maybe a renaissance.  Little puffs of smoke will soon turn into a wildfire when I've allowed the fuel to feed the fire, and oxygen and intrigue will do the rest.  Big secret or no surprise, really?

You say you saw this storm coming,
Unsurprised the boat overturned
You've given up on thinking for fighting
And like all life, choose to comply (it's easier that way).

I've chosen to fight the slow-wet death,
To push against the age of apathy
and doubt and anxiety that comes 
with security. 
With so much level-headed life, 
Overfull with the Right decisions,
I've decided to throw and catch my own
Life Preserver.

Buoyant on my best new bliss,
I'll feel fear and joy as deeply as this ten-year calm;
A sort of heart arrest, 
An attempt in the earnest to halt
the drowning Death of Soul and Mind.

I'll float along, 
you may drift with me (if you bring your own boat),
and we may share the fancy thoughts of early days;
Lives that were only separate but just so.
I'll be happy to throw you a towline if you need one,
should you send out the S.O.S.

Apologies...

Due to being overly introspective and more than a tad bit whiny, the previous post has been taken down for maintenance. I'm sure the author just needs a vacation.

Me, I Want Some Glitter Glue...

My last 2 pennies for the night:
 

I haven't done any Christmas shopping. I don't imagine I will do any, really, beyond purchasing a wooden puzzle for Bea (she's wanted it for a while) and something small for Sebastian. I've been sort of scanning myself for guilt about this and I can't seem to find a drop of it. I HAVE been hearing, however, pressing, nervous voices from others around me about "getting gifts for the family", "give us your lists", and "aren't you going to buy your husband anything??" I can honestly say that I'm not bothered by any of this, even though the buzz these comments give off is getting louder by the day.

I've been busy--heck, this whole family has been busy--and we're really quite financially tied down by an unpaid internship that has kept all our spending tightly in check. We have a tree that grows in a pot, year after year, that we decorate w/handmade ornaments. We used scraps of craft foam to make bizarre little alien mistletoe and it looks awesome (glitter glue is sublime, really). I plan on engaging in some furious gift-baking for a few folks that come through on cloudy days and some cheap wine for those few that never come through but expect a gift because of their family status. As for presents for my kids? They get me, covered in paint and flour and chocolate (and glitter glue) as we craft our Christmas on the cheap this year and they get it.

 The above picture was taken 2 years ago, when we decided to spend a little dough on Christmas...At Goodwill.

Smashy, Bashy, Crashy, I'll Be Better in the Morning

I’m so scared to open a new Word document; whatever might show up next on the screen may be completely specious and illiterate.  M says I should write more. Perhaps he’s right. Perhaps I’ve been wasting too much time playing computer games that destroy my mind, making my sense of creativity soft and immobile. It has been so long since I created. I play my ukulele, I took my tap classes, but alas, I create nothing. I create absolutely nothing since I’ve created my children.

They’ve taken—or rather, I’ve taken, as I’m the one responsible for making them—my will to create, my joie de vivre of creation out of my bones and have used it for their elaborate train rail set-ups, their wooden block houses, their doll beds from cardboard boxes. They freely scribble on an easel with markers and crayons anything that pours forth from their small hands. I’m jealous of this. I can’t remember the last time I’ve created anything beyond dinner; lately even the most basic meals have been rushed, sloppy affairs where I’m trying to create something out of leftovers that have twice been re-animated.

How am I to get back to the flush of spasmodic existence that was my creative late teens and early twenties? Is it possible to recapture it somehow, like a rare butterfly, or is it ethereal, little more than dust motes in the afternoon sunbeams that seem to only be noticed by my cat?  Is this the end, or the limit of my intentional creative abilities? My brain feels so slow—so lackadaisical to spur forth knowledge that used to gush out of my once-eloquent mouth, that I feel my creative time is up.  If you’ve had children, maybe you feel the same. If not, well…I won’t say not to procreate, but I will say that you should plan to get all your good ideas out now, rather than wait for the slow mental decline that will meet you once the umbilical cord is forever severed.

Even at this very moment, as I look back at what I’ve written, I’m tired. I don’t want to read this, I don’t want to continue this note, this essay or whatever the hell it is…My brain is simply at its worst. My discipline is nil. All this at a time when most people are imagining their New Year’s Resolutions, their plans for a better start, a new life, a new endeavor. Sarcastic? Hardly. This is realism. This is my creative life now, and while I assume it has settled in, just like Milo when he reaches the Doldrums, I crave a Tic-Tock Dog to invigorate me once again.

Who or what will be my Tic-Tock? Certainly not my husband, and most certainly not my children. I’m not invigorated by my family members on a creative level anymore; the last time I was, I wrote a crappy blog that I felt no love for. Essays that mean little more than wasted digital space. I will not brag about my children teaching me peace or love or honesty or any other bullshit that parents brag about in other social networking sites. I’d feel more comfortable writing openly about the really awful stuff—the depression that comes with raising two children, the depression that settles in from the decision to stay at home full-time, rather than explore a desirous career, the depression that comes from knowing that I will never be the person that I thought I might like to be.

This life, at this time, is filled with little flecks of light that only manage to escape the majority of dark matter constantly swirling around…I used to keep waiting for the good stuff to happen: return of my libido, children sleeping through the night, a husband that doesn’t fall asleep putting the kids to bed, a room of my own to work in, a chance to pursue my shh-oh-so-secret desire to act, but alas, I’m still waiting and I’m tired of waiting. In the immortal words of B.B. King, “the thrill is gone.”

Post-script: Yes, therapy IS good. CBT is awesome, but if you can't see a piece of writing for what it is--a captured moment from my brain, spewed forth from my fingers onto the little black keys of the laptop--and you fear for my existence or some other silliness you've cooked up in your mind about me, then you simply need to stop worrying and start reading other people's cheerier bloggy bits of fluff, rather than dwelling on mine.

The Death of Facebook

 To my friends that are actually my friends that I connected with using the medium of facebook:

 HEY! If you love me, you'll email me or call me. I think the time has come to let facebook go. I'm not de-activating, I'm deleting my account. I'm not leaving the web, however. I'm going to Twitter, I'm on google, I've got 2 blogs, and I'll continue to use my ever-reliable Yahoo email address. This isn't an attack on any of you (it's not you, it's me). I've wasted too much time on here. I've put off the kids when I should have responded. I want to work more on our house. I need to paint some walls, bake some zucchini muffins, play my ukulele, and work on possible curriculum. If I edged myself off slowly, like a drug, I know I'd be back and I'd relapse into this world of constant updates and useless info. George Takei is fantastic, oh myyyy, but I'm leaving him behind to further explore my own universe. I've loved connecting w/so many of you via the fb medium, but until fb becomes less intrusive and more respectful of its users' rights, I will be absent from this realm. 

1/2/12 Update: I'm nuts--how on Mother Earth would I remember your birthday if I didn't have fb? No, really. I'll hang out w/fb a little longer, only if I can prove to myself that I don't need bragbook, but I do need a device to keep in touch with people I would actually converse with in person.  Facebook, you didn't win this round, as I shall dominate you, you engrossing, dangerous little chimp.

Well, I've been running. And running. And uke-ing (not puking). And the kids keep growing and coughing and eating and running and playing and screaming and fighting and reading and peeing and talking and giggling and wrecking and creating.

That's all I've got time for right now.

Sitting, Failing, Baking

As I'm sitting here, waiting for the cranberry-orange bread to finish baking, I'm neglecting the dishes, listening to jazz, ignoring the nagging need for sleep, I'm beginning to wonder if that tomorrow morning's 5K at 8am is such a good idea. For one, I'm getting another cold. Yes, ANOTHER virus, as I've gone an entire 3 days without some form of illness. I usually contract these bugs from my children, who are neither daycare kids or school kids, but instead are, I've decided, small, human petri dishes.

I've begun running. Did I mention that? Some mothers choose to start running to chase after their children. I've begun running so as to run FROM my children. SeaBass' whining hits a fever-pitch w/in 30 seconds of self-made dilemma, and Beatrice won't stop eating the cat food. These people are from my loins. I've fed them of my own body, yet somehow the cat's food tastes better, and whining is a more poignant form of communication than, say, talking quietly.

Whine, whine. More later. I should clean the cooked bread batter off of the stove before it looks good enough to eat.